


A Scandal in Aquilonia

by diffugerenives



Category: Conan - Robert E. Howard, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-02-12 06:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12953655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diffugerenives/pseuds/diffugerenives
Summary: Based on (seriously) a very bad academic book about Sherlock Holmes which contains a sentence in the summary of "A Scandal in Bohemia" that describes Holmes as "refusing the King's hand and his ring." Add a good Sir Arthur Conan the Barbarian Doyle joke, and we have the epic crossover no one ever asked for.





	1. Prologue

As my readers will know, in  _ The Final Problem,  _ I narrated the death of my friend Sherlock Holmes. I, like you, was taken in by Holmes' false death. As I looked into the spray of the Reichenbach Falls, I mourned our years of friendship. 

As you will know, too, Holmes was able to save himself from death, and told me that he had spent the years between 1891 and 1894 traveling the world. "I travelled for two years in Tibet, therefore, and amused myself by visiting Lhasa, and spending some days with the head Llama. You may have read of the remarkable explorations of a Norwegian named Sigerson, but I am sure that it never occurred to you that you were receiving news of your friend. I then passed through Persia, looked in at Mecca, and paid a short but interesting visit to the Khalifa at Khartoum, the results of which I have communicated to the Foreign Office. Returning to France, I spent some months in a research into the coal-tar derivatives, which I conducted in a laboratory at Montpellier, in the South of France." Such were his words to me. 

On a warm autumn day in 1917, however, as we sat in his cottage in the Sussex Downs, he told me a tale that would shatter my belief in the world as I knew it, and in what I thought I knew of my friend. 

"I fear I have not been entirely honest with you, Watson," he said, steepling his long fingers and leaning back in his armchair. Late afternoon light filtered through the windows of the cottage; outside, his bees hummed. There was no evidence of the things he was about to reveal to me. 

"Go on, Holmes," I said, rubbing my injured leg, which, as I have grown older, has gotten worse. 

"I  _ did  _ fall over the Reichenbach Falls," he said. 

"What!" I ejaculated. "However did you survive?"  

"Just before I was to be dashed on the rocks, as my enemy Moriarty was, I was - I can find no other word for it than 'transported' to another land. When I opened my eyes, sure that I was either about to be judged by St. Peter or sent downward, I found myself in a place that was sure neither the gates of Heaven or of Hell. Instead, I was on a wide plain, under a sky that seemed strange to me.

"I wandered, dazed, until I was taken up by some barbarian horsemen, whom I addressed in all of the considerable amount of languages I have learned, but who seemed to show no understanding. If I knew no better, I would have said that I was among the Mongols of the 13th century! They disputed a little bit in a language I found utterly incomprehensible. What, it seems, they were discussing, was how best to be rid of me, as they had no unused horse for me to ride.

"As I was held helpless by two of these barbarians, another man swept over the steppe on a swift horse. He was taller even than the King of Bohemia, who, you may remember, was six and half feet tall, and his muscles bulged like a prize fighter's. His hair flowed long over his shoulders.  

"With a sweep of his mighty sword, he decapitated two of the barbarians. The other two relinquished their hold on me and went for their weapons, but the fight was short. My rescuer, if I can call him such, looked at me with disdain – for I suppose I put up a poor figure next to him, in my bedraggled clothes. 

"With scarcely any effort, he lifted me onto  _ his  _ horse, where I sat rather uncomfortably in front of him. I would learn later than one of his gods had supplied my location and the time of my arrival, as well as warning him of the danger the horsemen would pose to me. He took me to his barbaric court, and gave me a position of honor, though I was not free to leave. 

"Let me tell you, Watson, of my adventures in the land of Aquilonia." 


	2. The Adventure of the Empty Saddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes arrives in Aquilonia and does what he does best - solve a mystery.

I had been established in a suite of rooms that would have befitted an Eastern Sultan – or Sultana. I was not allowed to wander the palace freely; but aside from that I was given every luxury. A tutor instructed me in the language, which I learned quickly, and soon the King himself, whose name I learned was Conan the Cimmerian, came to visit me almost daily. 

One day he came to me distraught. When I enquired as to the reason for his distress, he merely shook his head. 

"Come, man," I said, for he had encouraged me to be familiar with him. "Out with it. Your god sent me for a reason – perhaps it is to help with this problem." I hardly felt comfortable speaking of a heathen god, who must be a demon of sorts, if he did exist, in this manner, but needs must. 

"Know then, O man of England," he said (his speech was always in this elevated register; if there was a reason for it, it was beyond my powers of deduction), "that today my favorite advisor went out for a pleasure ride. This is strange enough – for in this country we ride not for pleasure but for need – but stranger still, his horse came back without him. She came back at a smart trot, calmly, and with her harness and saddle untouched by violence. We followed her tracks, but found no sign of Prospero, living or dead." 

"Hmm," I said, feeling true interest for the first time since I had arrived, "an interesting problem indeed. Please, proceed." 

"There is little else to tell," he said, shaking his mane of hair over his well-muscled shoulders. "He is gone, as though into thin air. I had thought that a demon had taken him, but there was none of their lingering stench about the horse or her saddle." 

These demons, I was soon to learn, were as real as you or I, and not a fancy of this barbaric people. 

"Show me the horse," I said, my eyes beginning to light, as you know, Watson, they do at the beginning of a case. 

The king stalled, his massive shoulders tightening. 

"You need have no fear that I will escape," I said. "For where would I escape to? I have no friend in this place but you."

"Well said, by Crom!" said the gigantic king. "Very well. I shall bring you to the stables, where the horse waits, still saddled. And we shall see if anything can be done." 

As I followed the king to the stables, I took note of my surroundings, in case I should ever need to leave my apartments quickly. The palace was ancient, older than any of our Norman castles, and there were many byways and culs de sac. I even saw places that I am sure hid secret passageways. 

At last we reached the stable. What an army of stablehands it must have needed to keep it clean! Heracles himself would have balked, were this the Augean stable. 

The king led me straight to the horse. She was a fine bay, with fire in her eyes and a well-formed head and neck, though, of course, she was of a breed whose name I did not and could not know. 

I stroked her forehead gently. She did not have the appearance of a horse who had recently been spooked; in fact, for a horse of her breeding, she seemed extraordinarily calm. I then turned my attention to the saddle. I could feel the king's eyes on me, appraising me. 

"Well?" said Conan, after some time. 

"I can tell you nothing that will help our case," I said. "The girth of the saddle is in perfect condition; there does not seem to have been a struggle near this horse. The only thing I can tell you is that the saddle-maker was a young woman, and that she was agitated as she finished the stitching of the saddle." 

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Conan. He did not ask me for an explanation of my process. I realize now that he must have simply thought that I was a wizard – for, as I have said before, in this world where I found myself stranded, like an exile on a desert island, magic was simply a fact of life. 

I paused. "Let us follow the trail of the horse," I proposed. 

Conan led me outside the city; he was my equal, or perhaps superior (I must admit it, Watson!) as a tracker, for he could see a bent blade of grass and tell me that the horse, and the horse in question only, had passed there.   
Really, Watson, I felt rather inadequate. My observations are based on my knowledge of our world – my monograph on the 36 kinds of dirt in London would do me no good in Aquilonia. Still, I had my best asset, my mind, and, while I did not have King Conan's titanic build, I did have my strength. 

We came to the farthest point in the horse's journey. 

"This is where she stopped," Conan said. 

I examined the area. It was a grassy field, and a fresh one too – the grass was full of spring, and hardly held my footprints for a second. My eyes close to the ground, I made a circuit of the field.

"Aha!" I said, stopping. "Look here!" 

The King came over to me. "What is it, Sherlock?" 

I pause here to say that his use of my given name, though it had shocked me in the first months of my sojourn in Aquilonia, was most common here; indeed, few if any of the people had family names, and if they had a second name, it was more a sobriquet than an indicator of familial status. I could, it is true, have asked him to call me "Holmes;" but the familiarity was not unpleasant. 

"See here," I said, pointing. "The grass has been depressed for a long time, perhaps by the weight of a body. How tall would you say this Prospero was?"

"Above the average," Conan answered.

"Could he, or his body, have made this depression?" 

"Aye," Conan said. "Then he has lain here?" 

"Perhaps," I said. I wondered, still, about the calmness of the horse – her lack of fear seemed to tell me that no ill had come to her master. 

I could feel the king growing restless. His hand was on the hilt of his massive sword, and I am sure he was seeking for some reason to draw it in anger. But no reason presented itself. We returned to the palace, he to his royal chambers and I to my apartments, which were no less magnificent. 

That night, there appeared to me a demon. It was blue of skin, and horned, and fearsome of aspect. 

"Man of England!" it said, in a booming voice, "desist from your pursuit of this matter. For there are powers beyond your understanding at work here; you meddle in things you wot not of." 

I had no doubt that I was awake and not dreaming. King Conan's absolute belief in the existence of demons had made me sure that they were real; I had, in fact, been waiting rather eagerly to see one. 

"I won't be intimidated," I said. "I've faced down worse than you." I am not sure, Watson, that this was entirely true. 

"Have you, O man of England? For you face Zal'kal the Vaultbreaker." 

This name, I must admit, meant nothing to me, and, seeing the blank expression on my face, I believe that the demon was a little discouraged. 

"Leave this matter," the demon said again, and vanished. 

I reported this encounter to Conan the next morning. His massive brow furrowed as he contemplated what I had told him. 

"Zal'kal the Vaultbreaker?" he said. 

I nodded. 

He knelt before me. "Sherlock, I have not been long in your company. But I admire your wit, a thing I lack, and I have grown to enjoy your presence." 

I wondered at the intention of this speech. 

"I say, then, that no one, were it the gods themselves, will harm you – and certainly not this demon, whose name is indeed ancient and mighty. I shall protect you with this my blade." Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed, a laugh such as Attila might have laughed, or some unnamed conqueror in the dawn of our world. "And indeed," he said, "the use of my blade will give me some respite from the boredom that is kingship." 

"This... Zal'kal is to be feared, then?" 

Conan nodded gravely. 

I paced the marble floor of the apartment. 

"Had Prospero been acting strangely before his disappearance?" I asked. 

"He was furtive – but then, he was always furtive," Conan said. "These city men are as quick to betray you as they are to breathe." 

"More strangely," I prodded. 

"I suppose so." 

"I believe I have the answer," I said. "I need only one more day to solve this mystery." 

"Very well," said the King. 

I spent much of that day, I fully admit it, lounging in my quarters. I had, I believed, the solution, and was only stalling out of my well-known sense of drama.

A loud noise caused me to start from a half-slumber. The demon had reappeared, a sword whose evil intent even I could feel in his hand. 

I screamed. 

My screams brought Conan, at a run. I wondered at this, for it meant that he could not have been far from my chambers. 

He unsheathed his mighty sword, the sound of metal on metal echoing in the marble halls. 

"By Crom, I curse thy name, Demon!" he said. "Now fight me, and not a swordless man." 

I made a barricade of my couch to protect myself; my skill in singlestick notwithstanding, I could see that this fight was no place for me. 

The muscles of Conan's arms bulged as he caught the demon's evil sword on his own, pushing him back, step by step. The demon disengaged his sword, feinted, thrust. But the barbarian king's sword was there, parrying.   
I watched the fight with dismay and trepidation. It was clear that two master swordsmen were before me, and the demon had the advantage of the supernatural on his side. 

At last, however, it was pure strength than won the day. Even a demon cannot survive a thrust of a blade to the heart, or so I have learned. Conan overpowered Zal'kal, striking the evil sword from his hand, and thrust his own sword into the demon's chest. 

He turned to me solicitously. "Sherlock, are you safe?" 

"I am," I said, though I was breathing hard as I said it. 

"Thank the gods," he said. 

"The mystery," I said, "is solved, I believe." 

I led Conan through the palace. He exclaimed at my knowledge of it, since I had only been through it a single time – but I kept my council. At last I found a secret door that I was sure lead to my quarry. 

Trying the door, I found it locked. But the lock was no barrier to the mighty thews of Conan the King, who wrenched it open. Passing through, I found that the walls of the passageway in which we found ourselves were stone and lined with slimy moss; it was an altogether unpleasant place. 

At the end of the passageway, however, was a comfortable room. There, reclining on a couch, was Prospero, alive and well. 

"By Crom!" said Conan. "How comes this to be?" 

"If you will permit," said Prospero, "I can explain all." 

Conan inclined his majestic head, narrowing his eyes slightly. 

"It was out of loyalty to you, sire, that I disappeared. The demon, Zal'kal, had threatened my sister, the only remaining member of my family, to blackmail me into finding a way for him to defeat you, my lord." 

"And so," I said, "he pretended to disappear, all the while hiding in this castle." 

"Wonderful!" said Conan. "But how did you come to know all this?" 

"I marked the horse's calm demeanor; I saw the place where Prospero had lain. I knew that no harm had come to him early on; but it was the demon himself, in appearing, who solved the case for me. I knew that some sort of fear had caused Prospero to disappear, but I was unsure of what it was. When Zal'kal threatened me, it was elementary to put two and two together and find that he had threatened Prospero as well." 

"Why did you not speak to me of this?" thundered Conan to Prospero. 

"Lord, he put a geas on me, that I could neither speak nor write of him, nor in any way indicate his presence." 

"Very well," said Conan, but there was distrust in his voice. "Now get you gone." 

Looking at me, Conan's eyes softened. He knelt before me once more, for all the world like a man about to propose to a lady. 

"I have marked both your bravery and your wisdom, O Sherlock of England," he said. He fumbled for something in his surcoat and produced a ring topped with a massive emerald. "It would do me the greatest of honor if you would join me on the throne as..." his voice faltered. "As my consort." 

I was at a loss for words. I have considered myself a confirmed bachelor for a long time, Watson, as you must know, and to be offered this man's ring and hand and throne was shocking to me. 

"I… must, with the deepest regret," I said, "decline. For now, at least. For it is, in my world at least, unbecoming for a man to propose an engagement after so short a period of acquaintance." 

Conan stood, like a mountain rising to its feet. "I am glad, man of England, that you have given me hope. For I would have you by my side for as long as you care to remain there."


End file.
